Well, music theory is helpful for me when I try to play piano. I have a pretty good grasp on chords and scale theory so translating them to piano is fairly straightforward.

Also, if I'm on the phone with my buddy, I can ask him about a particular piece of a song and all he says are the chord names and that's all I need to write down. Writing C7 is alot faster than spelling out the tab for a C7.

I bring an acoustic to a buddies house. He wants to play a song that i've never played before. He'll say "gimme a I-IV-V in A" That's the whole song right there in two seconds.

That's a couple of advantages for me.

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